


Tough Love

by HeartsInJeopardy



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Scorptra, Sharing a Bed, banana bread
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 18:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartsInJeopardy/pseuds/HeartsInJeopardy
Summary: Her methods are unconventional, but no one can cheer Catra up like Scorpia.





	Tough Love

**Author's Note:**

> These two are pretty much my favorite pair on the show, so I was happy to finally write something about them. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> NB: This is set sometime during season two, if that matters to you. I use claw and pincer interchangeably to describe Scorpia’s hands, mostly for the sake of variety.

Scorpia smoothed back her hair and checked her reflection on a wall monitor. She smiled at the screen, scanning her teeth for lipstick marks.

“That’s as good as it gets,” she muttered to herself.

She continued down the hall, taking deep, anxious breaths until she finally reached Catra’s quarters.

“Super pal!” she shouted. She knocked loudly on the door and put on a friendly grin. “Ready or not, here comes your favorite force captain.”

She mashed the keypad with a claw and the segmented door slid open. The room beyond was pitch black. The door shut behind Scorpia as she stepped inside.

“Catra?” she called with a hint of fear in her voice.

“I’m here,” Catra grumbled.

Scorpia felt along the wall for a switch, then blinked as the harsh lights came on. Catra lay on her four corner bed, gazing up at the canopy with her legs dangling over the side. She didn’t even turn her head toward the door.

Scorpia had quickly become an expert at gauging Catra’s moods – most of which could only be described as bad. She could already tell from the vacant expression on Catra’s freckled face that this one was particularly rough.

“You alright?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “We missed you at the morning meeting.”

“We?” Catra asked flatly.

“Well, I did.” Scorpia shrugged. “That’s why I brought you this.”

She held up a plastic container and lifted a corner of the lid. The sweet smell of banana bread wafted through the room.

“It’s an old family recipe,” she said proudly. “Not my family, though. I got it from _Baking for The Horde_.”

Catra gave Scorpia a sidelong glance – the most she had moved since Scorpia came in – and furrowed her brow.

“How do you crack the eggs?”

Scorpia’s eyes twinkled. “It’s funny you should ask-” She trailed off abruptly as Catra held up a hand.

“You know what, I decided I don’t care.” She turned her head back to stare up at the canopy. “You can leave some on the desk if you want. Just shut the lights off when you go.”

Scorpia frowned, but tried not to take Catra’s chilly attitude personally. She usually did bounce back to her old snarky self after some time alone, so maybe it was for the best.

She held a claw by her close-cropped hair in a salute. “You got it bestie. Just get some rest and enjoy.”

She flicked off the lights, plunging the room into darkness again. The clanking sound of her wandering footsteps echoed off the small room’s metal walls.

“It’s on the left,” Catra said.

“I knew that.”

Her footsteps picked up speed, then ended with a noisy crash and a groan. Catra sighed and stood up, walking quietly to the door.

The lights flicked on again. Scorpia lay at the side of the room, buried under Catra’s overturned desk and all its contents. Her long, pointed tail stuck up pitifully from beneath the pile.

“Was that always there?” she asked.

Catra took a seat on the bed, pulling her knees up and wrapping her tail around her body.  

“You might as well just stay.” She sighed. “Who knows what you’d knock over on your way out.”

“Sorry,” Scorpia said quietly.

She crawled out from under the desk and righted it, easily lifting it with one claw. She set the banana bread on top and crouched to clean the rest of the mess.

“So what’s got you so down in the dumps anyway?” she asked.

“A bug girl broke into my room and trashed it.”

“Right.” Scorpia nodded. “But I meant before that.”

“Do I need a reason to feel sad?”

“No,” Scorpia said thoughtfully. “But I can think of at least 16 things that might be upsetting you. If you tell me which one, maybe could help cheer you up.”

“Only 16?” Catra asked. The corners of her lips curled up in a wry smile that showed off her fangs.

The sight made Scorpia’s heart skip a beat. She turned her blushing face away from Catra, then finished cleaning up the desk. When it was finally tidy again, she straightened and turned around.

“Incoming!” she called, leaping onto the other end of Catra’s bed.

The jump caught Catra off guard, as the force of Scorpia’s crash landing launched her toward the canopy. She yelped, flipping back in midair to land safely on her pillows.

“So let me guess,” Scorpia said. “Hordak trouble? Shadow Weaver trouble?”

She snapped a claw with each suggestion, a little quirk that Catra recognized as Scorpia’s version of counting on fingers. She cleared her throat and looked away from Catra, suddenly self-conscious.

“It’s not Adora trouble, is it?” she whispered.

Catra exhaled slowly, gazing off into space. “I think it’s a whole new kind of bad feeling. About messing up pretty much everything I do.”

“That sounds like something _I_ should be dealing with,” Scorpia said.

Catra rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep from smiling.

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “Basically everything has gone wrong since the attack on Bright Moon. Well… since before that, really. But I feel like it’s getting worse all the time.”

Scorpia opened her mouth to speak, then froze. She clicked her claws excitedly and sprang off the bed with a smile.

“That reminds me,” she called over her shoulder.

She scooped the banana bread container off Catra’s desk and jumped back to the bed. This time, Catra gripped the sheets and braced herself to keep from flying up.

Scorpia opened the container, revealing an entire loaf of freshly sliced banana bread with chocolate chips baked inside. The mouth-watering smell was nearly overwhelming to Catra’s keen senses.

“I’m not complaining, but why did my failure remind you of banana bread?” she asked.

She took a piece in her clawed hand and raised it to her mouth. Scorpia suddenly snapped her pincers around Catra’s wrist. She glanced anxiously between Catra and her piece.

“Hang on, can you eat chocolate?” she asked urgently.

“Why would I not be able to eat chocolate?” Catra scoffed. She pulled her arm free and took a bite.

“Sorry, just checking.”

Scorpia picked up a piece of her own, turning it in her claws to look over the soft crust and spongy filling. 

“It reminded me of what you asked earlier. About how I break the eggs.”

Catra raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll bite,” she asked through a mouthful of banana bread. “How do you break the eggs with your pincers?”

“I don’t.” Scorpia shook her head and put down her piece. “I still haven’t got the hang of it. I try to hold one end in each claw and break the middle, but every time…”

She snapped a claw together suddenly for emphasis.

Catra stuffed the rest of her piece into her mouth. “So youww tewwing me weew bowf faiwures,” she sputtered.

Scorpia reached out, gently brushing a chocolate chip from the fur around Catra’s lips. Catra didn’t pull away, but her tail tensed reflexively at the touch, and she stared warily at Scorpia with her yellow and blue eyes.

“I’m saying it doesn’t matter if you break the eggs right.” Scorpia grinned. “As long as you can pick out the egg shells and keep baking.”

She lifted a tiny crumb off Catra’s sheets with the tips of her pincers. Catra’s body relaxed and she cocked her head, gazing pensively at Scorpia’s smiling face.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this. But that kind of makes sense.”

“Good.” Scorpia softly patted Catra’s knee and rose off the bed – making the springs creak. “Grab another piece and I can share more baking wisdom on the way.”

Catra’s ears perked up. “On the way to where?”

“If there’s one thing that usually makes you feel better, it’s punching something,” Scorpia said with a wink.

***

Catra folded her arms, gazing around the cavernous space of the cadet training room.

“How is this supposed to help me again?” she asked.

Scorpia threw up her claws. “I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.”

She lunged forward, twisting at her hips while stretching her long arms back and forth. Catra took a step back from her, narrowly avoiding a claw to the face.

“You have a lot of pent up emotions,” Scorpia said as she limbered up. “But talking things through is not your strong suit. Instead, you express yourself best in the heat of battle.”

“Try talking about eggs again,” Catra suggested. “You were making more sense before.”

Scorpia bent at the waist, lightly pinching her toes. “I’m saying that a sparring session could be the perfect thing to lift your mood.”

Catra raised an eyebrow. “So you want me to beat you up until I feel better?”

“One.” Scorpia clicked a claw. “That’s a little overconfident of you. Two.” She clicked again. “It seems to work with Adora.”

Catra’s ears flattened as her eyes narrowed. “ _You’re_ not Adora,” she snapped.

“Believe me, I know,” Scorpia muttered to herself.

She straightened to her full height and stepped toward Catra. The much shorter force captain gazed up at her with a bemused expression.

“I’m sorry to do this Catra,” Scorpia said. “But I’m willing to _instigate_ a fight for your own good.”

Catra stifled a laugh. “Oh, you are?”

“That’s right… bub.”

She shoved Catra’s shoulder. Her eyes widened in surprise as she staggered backward.

“Hey!”

“What’s wrong, uh, shorty? Don’t like being pushed around?”

Scorpia shoved her again. She grimaced with obvious discomfort at playing the bully, but raised her muscular arms toward Catra in what was meant to be a threatening gesture.

“This is ridiculous,” Catra stamped a foot. “I’m going back to my room.”

She turned her back on Scorpia, then yelped and jumped several feet in the air. She glanced over her shoulder to find one of Scorpia’s huge claws pinching her tail. Scorpia look mortified as she glanced between Catra’s scowling face and her own claw.

“Okay, I got a little too into my character,” she blurted out. She raised her claws up in surrender. “But I think we both learned aAAAGH-”

Whatever she meant to say was drowned out in a scream, as a furious Catra pounced and bared her fangs.

***

“Scorpiaaaaaa,” Catra called sweetly. “Wakey wakey, time to get up.”

Scorpia’s eyes fluttered open. What looked at first like an orange and brown blur hovering over her faded into Catra’s beautiful face as she blinked again.

Except she knew it couldn’t be Catra. Not the real Catra, at least. Because she was giving Scorpia the kind of loving smile she had only seen from Catra in her dreams.

“Super pal,” the angelic Catra said softly. “You’ve got to wake up now.” 

She reached out a fuzzy hand to tousle Scorpia’s hair, and to Scorpia’s surprise her dream girl felt much more _real_ than usual.

“Am I awake?” she mumbled.

“Oh thank Hordak.”

Catra sighed in relief. Her smile faded quickly, replaced by a mildly annoyed expression that Scorpia was more familiar with.

“I thought you were dead for minute there, and that would have been a pain to cover up.”

Scorpia’s eyes darted from side to side. She recognized the minimal decorations of Catra’s quarters. She seemed to be lying in Catra’s bed, with the sheets tucked up around her.

“Why am I in your room?” she asked.

She tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillows clutching a claw to her aching head.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t move,” Catra warned. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion.”

“Ooh, I think I feel that,” Scorpia groaned.

“That might be a good sign.”

Scorpia shifted onto her elbow, reaching back to feel a bandage taped on the back of her head. Catra sat cross-legged on the bed beside her, and winced as Scorpia touched the wound.

“Did you do that?” Scorpia asked incredulously.

“I think you did, technically. After you pinched my tail-”

“Oh yeah!” Scorpia chuckled weakly. “I remember that.”

Catra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well I jumped and you just tripped backward. Bonked your head on the training room floor.”

“So how did I get up here?” Scorpia rubbed at her bandage and gazed around the room.

“I dragged you up here.”

“By yourself?”

Catra nodded gravely. “The elevator was out. Up four levels and then down the hall to here. You room was up another floor so…”

“And you patched me up too?”

“Yes, but I’m only doing it _once_ so stop picking at the tape.”

She pulled Scorpia’s claw away from her bandage and pushed her spiky shoulder back against the pillows. As groggy as she was, feeling Catra’s soft hand push her against the bed was enough to make Scorpia’s eyes light up.

“What are you so happy about?” Catra raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Scorpia blurted a little too quickly. Her face fell as she stared up at Catra. “I’m sorry I couldn’t cheer you up like I meant to.”

“Oh!” Catra’s ears perked up. “But you did! Right before you fell over you made this scared face-”

She bulged her eyes and dropped her jaw in imitation, then broke into a giggling fit. Her tail wagged happily behind her as she laughed uncontrollably, clutching her stomach.

A warm smile spread across Scorpia’s face. She put on a horrified expression that made Catra burst out laughing again.

“Stop, stop,” she said, gripping one of Scorpia’s claws. “I’m seriously going to cry - it was so good.”

Scorpia had to congratulate herself on a job well done, even if things hadn’t gone according to plan. She would have been happy to keep smiling and laughing along with Catra, but the stinging pain in her head was getting worse.

She pulled the mandible shaped armor from around her face and set it aside, easing some of the pressure on her head. Catra glanced down at the headpiece.

“Why do you wear those inside anyway?” she asked. “When we’re here in the Fright Zone, I mean.”

“It goes with the territory.” Scorpia shrugged her burly shoulders. “In The Horde you have to be tough.” She pointed a claw at Catra. “Or look tough.” She tapped a claw against her headpiece.

Catra cocked her head. “Who says you’re not tough?”

“I just went one round with the training room floor and lost.” Scorpia grimaced. “I think that rules me out.”

Catra studied her closely, with her ears pinned flat against her head. For a moment, Scorpia worried she had said something wrong.

When Catra reached out to gently stroke her head, trailing her clawed fingers over the fine hair of her undercut, Scorpia couldn’t hide her surprise.

“There are different kinds of tough.” Catra said softly. She kept her eyes down, but her hand combed affectionately through Scorpia’s white locks. “And growing up in The Horde definitely qualifies in my book.”

Scorpia stammered, nervously pinching the sheets against her chest as she thought of what to say. She could feel her face flushing, and it was getting harder to look at Catra by the second.

Finally, Catra was the one to lift her hand away and break the spell.

“You should get some rest,” she said.

She rose off the bed and strode quickly to the door.

“Catra, wait!” Scorpia called out.

Catra turned to face her, furrowing her brow at the sudden outburst.

“I, uh.” Scorpia wrung her claws together. “Just, stay a little longer, okay?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “You’re in my room,” she scoffed. “Where did you think I was going to go?”

She flicked the lights off. Scorpia followed the soft padding of her footsteps as she returned to the bed.

“Scoot over,” she ordered with a poke to one of Scorpia’s armored shoulders.

Scorpia quickly shifted to the other side of the bed, and felt the mattress dip as Catra climbed up beside her.

“Ow! And move your tail.”

“Sorry.”

She rose onto her elbow, swinging her tail behind her back to the other side of the bed.

While she couldn’t see Catra in the dark, Scorpia knew from their time working together that she would be curled up into a tight ball and asleep in no time.

Sure enough, Scorpia could feel Catra’s back against her side, and her bushy hair tickled Scorpia’s shoulder.

“Catra?” she asked, feeling her eyelids begin to droop.

“What?” Catra yawned.

“Thanks for today.”

“What did I do?” she snorted.

“Just. Being you.”

Silence fell between them. Scorpia shifted against the pillows, and was nearly asleep when Catra mumbled her reply.

“Thanks for being you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, please let me know what you thought! I love feedback, good or bad!


End file.
